Sexy, hedonistic, hilarious - Ann Summers parties are the ultimate girls' night in. Promising the perfect antidote to the toils of everyday life - sexual pleasure - they are the 'naughty but nice' version of the classic Tupperware(R) party.Ann Summers parties are incredibly popular, with around 4000 parties held in Britain every week. The basis is simple: to provide an all-female environment where women can buy sexy lingerie, erotic fashion, sex toys and other sex-related products. In many respects these parties enable women to transgress social taboos in the comfort of their own homes. But they are also a subtle means of constructing and enforcing heterosexual femininity.This book investigates what really goes on at these 'special' homosocial gatherings, where heterosexual women drink, laugh, shop, play party games and talk about sex. Storr develops a new analysis of the ways heterosexual women identify with and against each other - and of what this tells us about gender, sexuality and consumption in contemporary society. Drawing on both participant observation and in-depth interviews with party organizers, this fascinating and fun book is an indispensable guide to the politics of 'post-feminist' culture.

In microeconomics, the decisions and functioning of individual consumers and households (what to do, what to buy, etc.), and firms or other organisations (what goods to produce, how to produce them, what prices to charge, etc.) are considered. It includes the study of the demand, supply and prices of individual goods and services such as petrol, maize, haircuts and medical services.

Understanding microeconomics is a comprehensive introduction to microeconomics in general, set against a contemporary South African background. The easy style and many practical examples make the content extremely accessible. The book covers all the material usually prescribed for introductory courses, and it lays a solid foundation for intermediate and advanced studies in economics.

This second edition is a thoroughly revised and slightly expanded version of the original one. Examples have been adjusted (where necessary), a few new topics are introduced and review questions are provided at the end of each chapter.

The collegia centonariorum were often seen as the municipal fire-brigades or status groups of sorts in the Roman cities. Through a close investigation of the chronological development and geographical distribution of the collegia centonariorum, their legal privileges, and the prosopographical data of members and patrons, this volume reveals a much more complex picture of their origins, characters and compositions in various regions from the first century BC to the fourth century AD. Intricately connected with the textile economy, the collegia centonariorum illustrate how elements as diverse as material demand from the military and the city of Rome, legal infrastructure, urban development, and organizations of urban-based craftsmen and tradesmen may have interfaced with each other in the Roman world.

In this follow-up to "Balls and Strikes: The Money Game in Professional Baseball" (Praeger, 1990), Jennings examines the state of professional baseball's labor relations during a nearly 25 year period, focusing on the background and the outcome of the 1994 baseball strike. Jennings concludes by suggesting ways to improve future labor relations in the sport.

While the entire professional sports industry generates less revenue than sales of Fruit of the Loom underwear, a lengthy strike in professional baseball assures a national notoriety far beyond its economic impact. When the 1994 strike was underway, scores of members of Congress were involved in related investigations and legislation, while President Clinton invoked the public interest in his efforts to resolve the dispute.

This book employs different parametric and non-parametric panel data models which have been used in history of developed panel data efficiency measurement literature. It assesses the differences of models based on characteristics and efficiency scores measurement using a systematic sensitivity analysis of the results. On the whole twelve parametric and four nonparametric models were studied. Parametric models are classified in four groups in terms of the assumptions made on the temporal behavior of inefficiency. A common issue among all the parametric models is that inefficiency is individual producer-specific. This is consistent with the notion of measuring the efficiency of decision-making units. Non-parametric models are divided into partial and full frontier models. A main contribution of this volume is that it helps to understand differences between parametric and non-parametric models. On empirical part of the volume, technical efficiency of two agricultural strategic crops (cotton and sugar beet) in different provinces of the Iran are analyzed. Using different models, the most efficient and inefficient provinces in cotton and sugar beet production of Iran are recognized.

This joint World Bank-ILO study traces the experience of 19 countries in reforming their vocational education and training policies and summarizes the lessons learned, focusing on obstacles to implementing changes in response to changing labor markets and innovative approaches to overcoming these constraints. The four main messages emerging from the study are: that matching instrument to target group is vital; the role of governments as facilitators has often been overlooked; the assumed reluctance of private providers to enter the field is a myth; and lack of political will, not institutional capacity, is the main obstacle to comprehensive reform.

How do we place value on goods - and, importantly, why? Valuation and pricing are core issues in the market economy, but understanding of these concepts and their interrelation is weak. In response, The Worth of Goods takes a sociological approach to the perennial but timely question of what makes a product valuable.
Structured in three parts, it first examines value in the broader sense - moral values and how they are formed, and the relations between economic and non-economic values - discussing such matters as the value of an oil spill, the price of a scientific paper, value in ethical consumption, and imaginative value. The second part discusses the issues surrounding valuation in aesthetic markets, specifically wine, fashion models, art, and the creative industries. The third part analyzes valuation in financial markets - credit rating agencies, stock exchange markets, and industrial production.
This pioneering volume brings together leading social scientists to provide a range of theoretical tools and case studies for understanding price and the creation of value in markets within social and cultural contexts and preconditions. It is an important source for scholars in economics, sociology, anthropology, and political science interested in how markets work, and how value is established.

This book presents startling evidence that state monopolies can produce better outcomes than the free market. It provides an empirical comparison of the property insurance market in five European countries: Britain, Spain, France, Switzerland, and Germany. The market and cost structures of insurers in each country are described, and particular features of each market and the outcomes for customers examined. The regulatory frameworks vary widely from country to country and so do the market outcomes, both in terms of premium level and in terms of available insurance cover. In view of the increase in major floods and other forms of natural damage (such as subsidence) over the last decades, the non-availability of insurance cover in many competitive insurance systems is likely to become a major political issue. This book shows that state monopoly is an adequate policy response. Competitive insurance systems are shown to provide incomplete cover at a substantially higher cost. In mixed systems, where the private sector can obtain reinsurance from the state (such a system is being tried in France) the state tends to end up paying most of the costs (it reinsures most of the bad risks) while the private insurance companies keep most of the premium income. The book will be of interest to academic economists interested in privatization, regulation, the theory of the firm, and insurance; Policy-makers concerned with regulation and privatization; Insurance companies, regulators, and analysts.

This textbook offers a comprehensive overview of the main developments in game theory since the 1950s. It provides a wide variety of examples and exercises, mostly drawn from applications in economics, to illustrate key concepts and ideas in the field. The book should prove an invaluable reference tool for teachers, students, and researchers of microeconomics and game theory.

By examining the development of economics in the 20th century, this book argues that the breakthroughs of post WWII general equilibrium theory and its rejection of utilitarianism and marginal productivity have been misunderstood. Mandler maintains that although earlier neoclassicism deserved criticism, current theory does not adequately address the problems the discarded concepts were designed to solve, and that intractable dilemmas therefore appear.

Competition in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity is of increasing interest to policy makers as well as to buyers and sellers of power. The use of competition as a social policy tool to benefit consumers carries the necessity of preserving competition when it is threatened by mergers or other structural changes. The work explains central principles of antitrust economics and applies them to mergers in the electric power industry. This work focuses on mergers, but the economic principles explained here will be useful in analyzing many important issues flowing from growth of competition in electric power. For example, proper definition of markets and analysis of market power will be useful in decisions on whether to continue regulation.

An updated revisting of the themes of Robin Marris' classic The Economic Theory of Managerial Capitalism (1964). This was widely recognised as pathbreaking as it was the first attempt by a professional economist to make a formal theory of the behaviour and growth of a large-scale 'managerial' corporation based on a realistic assessment of the sociological and institutional environment. The model determined the long-run growth rates of individual firms on the basis of the financial and market environment on the one hand and the needs, interest and aspirations of both managers and shareholders on the other. Managers in particular were shown to trade desire for growth against fear of takeover. These then novel important features of modern capitalism - mergers, takeovers and executive bonuses and the relationship between the growth of firms and the growth of the economy - have become increasingly topical. The book contains the original introduction along with reworked and updated coverage of the theoretical model, along with completely new chapters both of micro-theory and Marris' substantive response to the debate which the original book created.

It is now almost twenty years since liberalisation and the introduction of competition was proposed for electricity utilities. Some form of restructuring has been widely adopted around the world to suit local objectives. The industry now faces new challenges associated with global warming, rising prices and escalating energy demand from developing countries like China and India. The industry will have to cope with; managing emissions; managing variable energy sources like wind, dev eloping clean coal technology; accommodating distributed generation and new nuclear stations and managing the impact of these developments on the distribution and transmission networks. It is now necessary to consider how the various market structures that were adopted have performed and how they will address some of these new issues and what further changes might be necessary.

This volume presents an all-inclusive analysis of the electricity market structures that have been adopted around the world and how they are performing. It provides an up-to-date analysis of the cost of competing technologies, the operation of energy and ancillary service markets and the impact of renewable sources and emission restrictions. It takes a forward look at likely future developments necessary to cope with the new emerging issues.

Part One introduces industry infrastructure, analysing state utilities, the motives behind liberalisation and the resulting structures.

Part Two considers generation costs, including renewable generation costs, and investigates the cost of restricting emissions as well as transmission and distribution costs.

Part Three discusses market operation, describing how costs affect the organisation of power generation. It covers trading arrangements, ancillary services, international trading and investment.

Part Four looks to future markets and technological developments that will shape the industry through the next twenty years. This includes the appraisal of investment opportunities for global power companies and implications for market performance.

Written by an internationally renowned consultant engineer, this book is full of expert insight and balances fundamental methodology and academic theory with practical information and diverse worked examples.

This is an excellent reference on the topic for power system engineers, regulators, banks, investors, and government energy agencies. With its many worked examples, it is also a brilliant tutorial accessible for postgraduates and senior undergraduates in electrical and power engineering.